Cheshire Secrets
by ElasticBobaTurtle
Summary: No one ever knew what the Cheshire cat hid behind his smile. No one ever knew what secrets she hid behind hers.
1. Chapter 1

They say that in the moment of a kiss, the entire world holds its breath. She knows that they are wrong for a fact, because in the moment of _this _particular kiss, the entire world is not holding its breath. It is suffocating—could not breathe even if it wanted to.

Kissing is supposed to be nice. Kissing is supposed to be the closest it comes to magic, makes you feel like you can fly, touch the stars, jump over the moon, and all that other romantic crap. Maybe it is; maybe she's completely and utterly wrong. All she knows is what _she _feels right now is a heavy-leaden-stone feeling that deadens every nerve, a crawling, burning sensation that eats away at her mouth--thoughit's probably just the vomit about to leap from her lips. His lips move poison against hers, suck the life out of her, and she feels herself growing old, weak, dying, a scattering of dust in the wind, a nothing that leaves no mark behind. Not even a shadow.

She could scream, but she knows he would just suck it right up, just the way he is sucking up her insides right now. So she doesn't scream, lies silent in his cold arms. She could struggle, but she knows that he would just pin her to a wall, twist her hands behind her back, and that would only make things more uncomfortable.

So she lets him do what he does and does not resist. He leaves her quiet, walks out the door and doesn't bother to say good-bye.

She forces herself to make breakfast. This is a normal day. Nothing bad has happened. Nothing, and more beautiful nothing, forever nothing. It's a fresh morning, a glorious morning with sunshine and no clouds and singing birds and—

The waffles are soggy.

She picks at the yellow-grey lumps with a fork, rolls them limply onto their sides,dogs' carcasses. Forces a bite into her mouth; almost gags on the mealy taste. Almost chokes as she tries to swallow the lump.

It sticks in her throat.

She swallows hard. Runs to the bathroom the next moment and throws up in the toilet. Gets the retch all over the toilet seat and throws up again at the sight of it. The sour aftertaste screams on her tongue, seeps into her throat and burns a deadly trickle of green venom.

She'll remember to buy a different brand of waffles next time.

For a brief moment she considers calling in sick today. But then Ino will come and start fussing over her and become suspicious, and that would only be worse. Ino scares her because Ino might find out.

And besides, she isn't sick. Because nothing happened, right? Nothing. Today is a fresh morning, a glorious morning with sunshine and no clouds and singing birds. She stands before the mirror and tries on a smile, forces her lips up, wide, wide, _wider damnit no one will believe you!_ smile, like the Cheshire cat. Perfect.

She looks at herself in the mirror for a moment and then stumbles blindly to the bathroom and throws up again. This time she doesn't get it all over the toilet seat; an improvement.

She rinses her mouth over and over, and then takes a deep breath. The taste is still there.

* * *

Talk about utter spammage. 

Might develop into something; we'll see. I haven't done a multi-chapter thing in...forever. Need to sharpen my skills (if I even have any). :D


	2. Monday Mornings

Omg! Second chapter! Surprised even me..

* * *

Monday mornings bring superstitions. Always, there is a sense of dread that wallows in the pit of her stomach, like a stone lodged firmly, and always, bad things tend to happen on Monday mornings.

She strides down the streets, forces herself to walk naturally (never a bigger paradox), swinging the arms wide, right foot, left foot, right, left, right, left, don't fall over…

No one notices the slight tremble of her feet as she sets them down on the ground, the imperceptible shiver of her hands that never ceases, never ceases, a cold that never leaves blue lips. She tries to keep her head up as she walks, even as her neck screams to _look down, look down! _in gaudy vermilion hues.

She heads down to the hospital for her morning shift, walks just a bit more quickly past the Yamanka flower shop. Sees Tenten coming down the street and veers sharply into a dark alleyway, holds her breath as the kunoichi passes—partly because of the stench, but mostly because she cannot stop herself.

Shivering all the while; the goose bumps dance up and down her arms with ballerina ease. She tells herself it's because of the cold.

Jaw clenched tight, she strides back out into the street, into the blinding broad daylight that burns her eyes and withers away her cardboard pretense. She imagines the strange stares the villagers give her, the wary looks: _who is she?_

She wonders the same herself, because she _feels_ like a stranger; caught guiltily in another being's skin, drowning in this foreign thing that covers her soul. She wishes she could rip it off, but remembers that it would only expose her.

She comes to a stop at the hospital, and there the great starchy gray building looms, stains on the apron of its rigidity. It is peaceful and undisturbed; the never-ending expanse of grey that is the walls and the curtain-drawn windows that are the sleeping eyes, fever dreams of the sick.

She smells the smell of antiseptic and sterile white, of deluging insanity in small trickles of light, sloshing messily about. She hears the hum of a janitor as he whistles a tune and jingles the keys on his belt, disregards the world with beautiful nobility.

She slips past the doors, past the nurse and her clipboard, down the hall, along the rooms, through the weaving humming of the janitor and under the flickering florescent lights. And stops.

Quickly, she changes into her uniform; the loose-fitting garments of white and flicks her hair over her shoulder. She checks in at the front and scans the duty schedule, finding that she has been assigned to a man named Speckers.

A deep breath, a rolling of the neck, and then she heads off. She scurries to room 104 and is not ready for what waits.

She opens the door and enters the room. Looks to the bed.

_It_ is barely man. Barely _hu_man.

For a moment she stares; and then she cannot look anymore, because it makes her frighteningly sick in the stomach. (Remember, it is barely human, this thing! Barely human—let her scream the lies! _What is it?) _She looks away for a moment, clutches desperately at the cabinet like it is her only savior, glad the man-_thing_ does not have eyes to see her do so. Clenches her hands, clears her throat, forces the air into her lungs and out, and then:

"Hello, Mr. Speckers."

The form twitches. She looks away from the man as she speaks. "I—I'm going to be your caretaker from now on. I'll be responsible for watching over you, feeding you, washing you, exercising you—"she counts off the duties like fate. "—and anything else needed. If you ever need anything, well—I'll be there."

She keeps her eyes to the ceiling, traces the white plaster patterns, and wishes it would make _It _go away. _It _is another nightmare. Today and yesterday are nightmares (probably tomorrow, too, now that she thinks about it) and she is sandwiched in between the laughing demons that yank her hair and pull at her teeth. None of this is real, she thinks. She pinches herself and already knows before she pinches herself that this is very real, and no amount of pinching will change it. The skin is crescented and pink where her nails have squeezed together in hopeless hope.

She risks a glance at the man and quickly turns to the other wall, breathing fast and quick and gut cringing, she tells herself to _calm down it's not his fault stupid girl this is your job, your life. You chose it. _

A gurgle from the bed where the nightmare lies.

She looks up at the noise and the man-thing's arm is quivering, reaching, doing _something_ _horrible it's going to get her_, and she can't look at it anymore!

"I'm sorry excuse me I'll be gone just a moment!" and she rushes out of the room and locks herself in the bathroom.

Today is a Monday morning.

-

The door creaks open, a whisper. It is another sweet nothing lavished on another cold no one. She quietly sets her things by the door, feet sliding out of sandals. She sets her keys down on the table just so that there is only the faintest clink of metal on wood; does not understand this feeling of having to preserve the edgy silence, feeding her enemy, gorging the suffocation.

There is a scream boiling inside of her, but her fears are squeezing her lungs tight so that she can't breathe. _Oh, no you don't. Screaming is a luxury you cannot afford. Listen instead to the silence of the living dead…._

Her eyes squeeze shut and she suddenly pictures Mr. Speckers among the white sheets, a mummy-corpse, quickly crushes the image with a mental fist, her own palms clammy and cold. The air-conditioning in the bathroom had been too cold, too cold. As if someone had _known_ and had purposely set the air-conditioning so that it would blow coolly across her skin, prod her conscience as she huddled in the corner for an eternity.

She bites her lip, and then quickly stops because the taste is still lingering, sticky, even _after_ the eternity during which she had sat on the cold tile floor, shivering. The damned taste! She rushes over to the sink and spits a great wad of sourness and sick pleasure, cold, unfeeling pleasure. The spit wallows in a bubbling puddle, leers. She turns on the faucet and watches it run down the sink with the rest of hissing water, swept along reluctantly; its fun has been ruined.

Afterwards, she returns to the table, and on it lays a small scrap of paper. The scrawl is messy and tight, rushed.

_Thanks for the ramen, it was really good. It'll be my treat next time, ne?_

_Naruto_

She would have smiled but fear has gripped her lips, too, and her mouth's muscles are frozen into marionettes of the fears' will—no longer her own. She remembers how only last week she could smile at jokes that weren't really funny and at things that scared her.

Only last week, but a thousand eternities ago.

* * *

Um...yeah. Kinda sucky...sorry if I disappointed. ;; Anyways, this story is mainly going to be a sort of experiment of styles and such. I really need a plot-bunny. Desperately. Please bear with me. :D 


	3. Venom

X-x-x-x—x-

Cold, is all she can think—_feel _(for thinking is a lost cause, now). Cold is her world; an entire universe comprised of burning freeze and haze, bitter, icicles, frost, sharp crystals, chilled sweat, and numbness. It is a terrible blue-white that snuffs out life without a moment's consideration, kills the stirring of warmth before it is conceived. She stares at the bed before her and the figure in it, half-concealed beneath the thrashed sheets. Only a hand peeks out, splayed innocently, the fingertips barely blue, those well-manicured nails with envy painted thereon in glossy polish.

The figure does not move (not a _single_ twitch! how does it manage?). She is afraid to touch it, to look at it, to breathe upon it; as if her very breath might extinguish any flickering of hope. What if--?

But no, she cuts herself off. She cannot think that. She is not _allowed to think that_.

The cold gathers in her throat like a lump of ice. If she tries to swallow, she will most surely choke.

She watches the figure for a few minutes, and still it does not move. Something must be wrong. This must be a dream, and she a wisp of uncertainty.

And so she walks to the bed, in a dream (that is really a nightmare) and stops a hairsbreadth from the mattress, a mere millimeter from the well-manicured nails tinged with blue. Still it does not stir. She wants to shake it awake, throttle the slim neck with all the fury-desperation contained in her trembling body (enough to make her explode). Make it breathe! Make it speak! Make it scream, even! _Anything _is better than this nothing!

She almost does—_almost_. But fear stops her, the same gripping fear, and she cannot break the iron hold it has about her very own neck, the broad, square-nailed fingers wrapped about her lungs that squeeze and prod _ev_er-so-gently. Her weakness is too great, her fear _of _the fear an unconquerable monster. It looms high, and the shadow it casts will never shrink.

So she stands and looks over, precariously, teetering on the edge of a cliff like a ballerina on wobbling toes, but, God forbid, does not touch. Just like a child who gazes at a piece of art hung on the wall of a museum; not allowed to touch it but only to look, and even then, the child does not _see_ what he is looking at, cannot understand what is so _great _about this piece of junk? A dab of paint, the swish of a brush (a million hours of sweat and watered-down coffee and sleepless nights excluded), and what of that?

It is only a canvas and a frame, after all. No soul contained within—at least none that shows. And so the child turns and trots away with nothing learned; knowledge's embrace is a lonely one. While the soul concealed within the canvas withers invisibly…

For a moment she thinks she sees the figure stir. But she blinks, and she knows well that it was only her blinking that caused the movement in her mind's eye, and it was all a delirious affair to begin with.

Her fingers ache to touch the body. To seek something that is lost; maybe the touch will reunite a spark of dry tinder, a firefly of flint. But what is it that she looks for, this keen yearning? Warmth? Reassurance? Another Loneliness? A something that cannot be brought back? A dream? (But no, it is something more than that, for dreams are nothing but air and talk.)

Certainly she knows better by now.

She can do nothing; never has been able to.

She thinks of how tired her legs have grown from years of having stood in the background (she might as well have been a tree), how tired her eyes are from watching blurs of Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi, and enemy ninja clashing and dancing like emperor cranes, and how tired her ears are from hearing, "Stay back, Sakura-chan!" and screams that should have rightfully been hers. Her screams are only of luxurious cowardice.

She thinks of the looks that Kakashi always used to give her when she was still his student, and not Tsuade's; that one _eye _that always managed to say so much, always managed to contradict itself. He'd always tried to smile at her, as if doing so would lessen the pity, make her less hateful. It never quite worked, though she had always secretly, selfishly hoped it might someday…

The woman turns finally away from the bed, dead-eyed, and walks on poison clouds to the door, feet numb with the venom. Halfway there she trips on a small capsulated bottle, empty when it should have been full. She kicks it aside, stumbling onward, latches onto the handle; heaves the door open and falls through.

There is nothing to catch her on the other side.

-

The way he looks at her makes her want to scream aloud. She clenches the table edge with deceptively white knuckles while she smiles that irony-tipped smile she's perfected over the years. _Remember what you have practiced…forget the venom beneath it all. Forget. Savor the sweetness._

She smiles wider (the beautiful Cheshire grin) and he begins to frown, sunny brows drawing together in cloudy hesitance.

"Sakura-chan?"

The look. She hates it with a burning jealousy. She feels herself turning sour, half-expects to look down and find her skin bloated green. Envy may be ugly, but she wears it well.

She hates him and loves him all at once. Hates him for being who he is, loves him because he gives her a reason to hate, to live. It all works out in the end. That's all that really matters, she supposes.

He watches her uneasily, weight shifting from side to side.

"Yes?" she replies suddenly, finally, eyes widening. She seems to have forgotten what words are, what her voice is; she scrabbles to find it in the nick of time. His unease dissolves at the word and he grins widely. She laughs quietly to herself, hides it flickering in her eyes. Naruto is too stupid to know it is there. He's a funny boy, such an easy thing to play with, love, and hate, all at once.

He laughs to reassure himself. "Nothing. It's nothing, I just thought of something weird." He smiles broad again, baring his teeth and eyes and tender, inflated youth full of oxymoron and hyperbole. He isn't afraid of anything; she hates him for that, too. She hides behind his courage and fashions it as her own.

"Mm, is that so?" she asks, eyes flitting down to the bowl before her. The noodles are soaked and floating engorged on the broth, like so many bodies she's seen before. She pokes at them with chopsticks, fiddles with their torsos and lanky legs, like a woman contemplating the deadliest of poisons: _which_ev_er to drink?_ The noodles lie limp and helpless; oil swirls lazily about and she stirs their tails, rakes the draggled feathers with estranged wooden teeth.

"Yeah…" Naruto trails off, shrugging his shoulders awkwardly. The orange of his coat is blinding, even in her peripheral vision. The merest tongue of color sneers self-satisfied, and she is desperately tempted to shield her eyes (wouldn't that be nice?), but settles for turning her head the other way, so as not to be conspicuous.

She must not show her fear to him, lest he laugh, lest he _sym_pathize. She stirs the oil more vigorously, watches it swirl frantically under her will. So this is what it is like to be in control. She allows herself a tiny smile, a china-doll smile of carefully chipped porcelain.

Round and round the broth spins, like a carousel. She makes herself dizzy watching it turn in frenzied circles; but it is a nice kind of dizzy, because she is the _cause _of that dizziness.

Naruto interrupts her suddenly. "Ne, Sakura-chan, are you going to finish that?"

She looks up and almost forgets to stop her eyes from narrowing. He stares back hopefully, eagerly, chopsticks in hand and clueless as ever. She almost lets him hear the laugh he should never hear. The laugh that scares herself sometimes, bursts forth from her lips when she least expects it, usually in the middle of tar-black nights. Sometimes she forgets that it is _her _laugh, it is so alien and beautiful. (Does she really sound like that?)

It is her laugh alone, and she will not share it with anyone. Not even him.

* * *

ahh..:kicks comp: needa upload before comp crashes. 


	4. Slice

-

Mr. Speckers has taught her much over the past few days. She finds it stomach-achingly funny how much you can learn from some-one-_thing_ that is almost dead (but not quite). The small wrinkle of life that is the secret crack through which wisdom slithers, a rare flower found growing on the brink of death; the yawning cavern of a volcano's mouth in its dangerous slumber.

But just because she's learned doesn't mean she isn't afraid. She tries to convince herself that _It_ is getting better, that it's not as hard as it was the first day to look at him; that the sickness in her gut has lessened somewhat, the trembling in her hands subsided. That maybe his gurgles are the beginnings of a song—she just doesn't know it yet. But lies only end up stripped and naked as truths.

Every look is a forced one, a glued gaze of trembling steel balancing finely on the line of snapping and thrumming. One roll of one _sin_gle toe will send her tumbling over the edge; she's so close she can smell the falling, the deepness of the emptiness that calls to her like moon to water.

Sometimes she thinks that when her back is turned Mr. Speckers will leap suddenly to life and strangle her from behind with his melted mummy hands, the fingers that have kissed fire and known intimately all its crackling magic. She gets the feeling he's only waiting for the right time. And somehow she knows she'll never be ready when that time comes, but she tries not to turn her back on him too much, anyways.

Because she still hopes a mad hope.

She and Mr. Speckers aren't much different, if you really think about it. She is much the same as him, he much the same as her—they might have even been the same person in lives gone past. She doesn't care to speculate, though, because she might stumble accidentally on the truth, kick her foot in the dirt and uncover a fossil that has lain buried for so long, distilled and silent. _Know_ing is a knife tipped with waiting poison, cradled in the hands of the one you love. She's seen the invisible wounds of _know_ing on too many faces (Kakashi? Tsunade? Maybe…maybe even Naruto, at one point); she doesn't care for the cuts herself.

She finds herself talking suddenly to him, hoping he'll listen with his burnt nubs for ears (knowing he can't really hear…but can he still _lis_ten? Oh, she hopes…) and wonders how did it all begin? How was it that the words flowed so, struck the air in precisely the way they did? They are infinitely strange—she rolls the taste on her tongue, trying to decide whether they are sweet or sour.

"Maybe you aren't so bad after all," she hears herself say. She inhales sharply afterwards, slaps her hand over her mouth. _Stupid words! _It was obvious she couldn't trust them, but still she had offered her trust so naively, thrust it in the hands of the enemy; handing over the rope that would become the noose tightened around her neck.

Her eyes narrow into angry Jack-o-lantern slits. Mr. Speckers regards her silently, a lump in the bed, a roll of bandages sticky with repressed sweat and dry with the skin of shriveled mushrooms. So many years of never feeling the light, not knowing when was day or night, evening or twilight, dusk or dust. Breathing only the transparent scent of gauze and darkness, hearing nothing but the electrical buzz of mechanical voices that say nothing. Is he saying it's _her_ fault?

A hiss scrambles out between her teeth and her hands slide slowly to clench. She stands rigid and tall before the bed, staring hard at the thing before her, trying to wither away the accusation but only being withered away herself. Somehow the years of nothing but suffocation and darkness has strengthened the man entombed in death, and somehow the years of nothing but air and light has weakened the woman entombed in life. In the end, she can only be certain of one thing: her own weakness.

Before she comprehends what has happened a kunai has slid its way into her hand, the cool handle resting against her clammy palm like snake skin. She is comforted by the grooves, the keen metal with glittery eyes of mischief; its pupils hold the gleam of redemption's absence. She shuffles closer to the side of the bed. In front of her is the white stand from which runs a thin tube like a miniature river; it strings from the man's nostrils to the sac of fluid that rests placidly, clear and sinless. It is all that sustains the tiny flickering of life. If one were to cut the source of sustenance…

Mr. Speckers' heavy breathing rasps in her ears and for a moment she is content to listen to it, to ponder the ragged rhythm and wonder at how the jagged edges scrape the air. And then the contentment, the odd appeasement snaps, and she slices the thin tube with a neat swipe of her hand, a fluid upward motion. It divides magically in half and the ends slump tiredly to the ground. The sound of liquid dripping accompanies Mr. Speckers' suddenly heavier rasping. The springs creak heavily as he twitches morbidly closer, squirms like a child dying, smothered in his sleep.

Suddenly, all the calm and fevered reason within her has leaked out, and her hand begins to tremble uncontrollably. She lets the kunai fall from her numb hand, and hastily, frantically kicks it beneath the bed, the vile thing! It wasn't her fault! It really wasn't! The door slams as she slaps it behind her, knocks it into its hinges, and stumbles blindlydown the hall.

She can run, but she can't hide.

-

His eyes are like black holes, the way to an infinite nothing. There used to be light inside the house, but his eyes have sucked it all out, swallowed it whole. The windows are rendered useless because the light does not penetrate anymore; its warmth is deadened to nothing but lukewarm cold, half-alive fish out of water. He says nothing, and still the way his silence works surprises her, jars her—amazes her.

How does he do it? Has he practiced all his life, rehearsed in silent hours for the show that never aired, never reached its melodramatic climax? _How_? Maybe if she asks him nicely, he will teach her the way. Whisper the sly secret in her ear and reveal its dark liquid heart to her—maybe _she_ has the chance of learning the deadly skill she has for so long coveted, the skill he has kept hanging above her nose on a pendulum, never—quite—letting—her—catch—it.

It's almost as if he can read her thoughts. The ends of his lips are curling faintly upward, the budding of a grey and sinister rose. Is he laughing? Smiling at the silly impossibility of it all, at her foolish belief in its fulfillment? Her cheeks are revisited by the blush of failed years, those twelve-year-old years of big fore-headed girls. She quickly whisks the blush away in a whirlwind of indignant fury. No longer is she the tramp girl. _No longer._

Her enamel grinds angrily together, and the budding of the grey and sinister rose flourishes to a greater dawn. He tilts his head to the side, as if by looking at her at a different angle she will become something different, something familiar.

"Your reason." It is a demand, not a request. He speaks to her like a contemptible stranger and watches her face carelessly (but carefully) for emotion, for the merest trace of reaction. She kills the emotion, the reaction quickly, behind a bloody hedge and then turns and greets him with a smile.

_Give him nothing in return for the nothing he gave you._

She blinks slowly, lets her eyelids slide open and takes a second, closer look at the man who stands before her, blocking the doorway. For once she is glad that her mouth will not move; she will not forfeit an answer—not this soon.

He regards her, measures her, looks her up and down without once moving his eyes—how much she has changed, how much of her is the same? She anticipates his surprise and is disappointed beyond expectation when his expression remains the same, an engraving chiseled into unimpressed stone. Some things never change.

The observing takes a minute or so before he finally steps back, allows just enough room for her to slip inside. She doesn't bother to ask for his permission; knows he wouldn't bother granting it. He closes the door behind her with a soft click and turns to face her again.

"Your reason," he insists quietly. She snorts under her breath.

"Do I need one?" she asks, eyebrows arching: a challenge put out, sealed in the subtlest of envelopes.

"It wouldn't hurt," he says.

"Seemed to have hurt _you_ too much to have one," she says, lightly. "You think we've all forgotten."

She whirls around to survey the space in which he lives, purposely disregarding his reaction (oh, it gives her so much satisfaction! more than she's felt in _years_). The space is filled with blank and cold, efficient grey, with one small sofa, one small bed, one small kitchen, one dying man who denies his disease as it festers deeper. One photo by the bed. She stares at it hard—the gloss has vanished with the time. He catches her stare, follows it, and marches quickly over to turn the picture to face the wall; she smiles at this, almost fondly.

Already, he has slipped. Maybe he isn't as strong as he makes out—in fact, she's certain of it. He faces her again, and this time there is a caution carefully concealed in his eyes, the faintest glimmer of suspicion. This strikes her as terribly funny. She's flattered that he'd be afraid of her, if only slightly so. Maybe the day has finally come.

It's her turn to do the scaring, now.

-

Ah! Fourth chapter! And still no point. Yesssss. But don't worry...I'm working on the plot. It may take a while to unravel.Just to warn in advance..it'll be pretty confusing. Hopefully you'll get it at the end (not really sure if she gets it herself xD).In the mean time...>>;;


	5. Vending

* * *

_She's dead, _the mutter-whisper as thick as pudding, _she's dead._ She cannot block out the wailing cries; they crowd and swarm and overwhelm with surprising ferocity. Her arms sting with their cuts of grace as she tries to shield her face from the pin-needle sharp teeth. 

And then the weak voice from within that joins the piteous chorus: _I didn't know it, it wasn't my fault! It's been too many years, too many times to suddenly be _gone

And still the stronger voice that drowns out the hideous whine: _Good, good, this is all good. She's gone now. Nothing more to worry about. Finally, we have won…_

And the small voice again: _No, no…this is only the beginning of the end. Soon they will come asking questions…it'll be all _your _fault. What will you do then? What?_

A snarl from the larger voice: _Shut up! Your fear disgusts—_

The small voice insisting: _My fear is what has kept us alive! _

She stands from the sidelines, peeking tip-toed over the chalk-lined boundaries, watching the fight between me, myself, and I. It has been since eternity; she knows it will never stop—it's gone on too long to end so abruptly, so weakly.

Still, she isn't sure which _one _to listen to (she's lost track of who's winning).The numbers have gone awry in her head, all logic murdered in the realm of two people who are, after all, of the same soul, but who could never hate anything more than they despise the other.

She wonders as she listens to the bickering, _can you be wrong and right at the same time? Can you hate and love yourself all at once? Can you be someone you are not while still being the person you half-are? Or is it too far past to turn back…? _

She is jolted awake by a hand on her shoulder, a cold snowflake touch, heavy and careful. She turns and gazes into an alien face, a face too tired to be forgotten, too familiar to be cherished. She is almost as tall as him, now (either she's grown a lot, or he's shrunken tremendously). He used to be so much more – what happened to looking _up?_

Kakashi smiles faintly at her, the mad-tired smile that never fulfills its task. His touch makes her cringe; her muscles tense like a wild-cat, and she wants to slap away his hand, demand his reason for touching her. What does he _want?_

He seems to somehow sense this (or maybe it's because he's not as stupid as Naruto and can actually _see _what's in her eyes) and casually removes his hand from her shoulder, tucks it into his pocket, next to that orange book of his.

"Yo, Sakura. What have you been up to lately?"

She must be cautious. Kakashi knows too much, and conceals it too well.

"Nothing, Kakashi-_sensei_. Why do you ask?" She adds an emphasis to the honorary (the dear _sensei_ of long ago) without knowing why. It gives her a certain satisfaction she cannot comprehend and she doesn't bother to question it. She'll take anything, these days.

Kakashi barely flinches at the title, at the nostalgic uselessness of it—but she still catches the slightest quiver of a jaw. Her eyes have grown keener over the years, her blindness softened and receding.

"Hm, well." Kakashi scratches his head, the mop of silver upon it. His eye crinkles for the first-last time (she isn't quite sure which) into the cloudless crescent moon. She hates liars—and Kakashi is the biggest one she knows. He still thinks he can _fool _her,_ keep her safe _with that sad excuse of a reassurance; _well_, she thinks, to each their own!

Even Kakashi has his own fairy tales to live.

"You've heard?" he asks, his voice dropping several octaves lower. His gaze has turned suddenly somber, the grey metal of an approaching storm.

She blinks innocently, all bright eyes and childish smile, all ballooning hopes. "What?"

_I fear you're facing the dead, Kakashi._

He stares at her for a moment, as if trying to figure out how to open a locked box he has stumbled across in a forgotten desert. "Sakura—"

He breaks off. For a moment she panics that he's seen through it all. Has he, with that lost eye?

_But, _she then thinks,_ that's impossible! _

Even Kakashi is blind in places he doesn't know.

She smiles harder, telling her cheeks to ache pink and her eyes to sparkle green. Hide it all beneath the ache and the fake sparkle…

Kakashi frowns. "I'm surprised you haven't heard yet, Sakura…after all, she was one of your closest friends." Her heart jumps at this. _Closest friend?_

She takes the luxury to ponder Kakashi's definition of friends, and wallows joyously in the vast difference between hers and his.

"But that doesn't change the fact itself…" he pauses. "I'm sorry I'm the one to tell you this, Sakura."

She keeps her eyes pinpointed on him, purposefully luminous, purposefully vulnerable. She allows her eyebrows to crease the slightest bit to add to the whole effect.

"Ino is dead," he says quietly.

She allows a moment to pass.

And now comes the careful, cataclysmic crumpling of the smile; the slow and frightful widening of the eyes. _Remember_, she tells herself, _do not over exaggerate—that is as bad as no emotion at all. _She blinks hard to encourage tears.

"What?" she numbs the word with a fermented numbness she has kept sleeping, thickening in the pit of her stomach for years, so that the word comes out as a marvelous frog-croak she didn't quite know she was capable of.

He watches her, and she knows his gaze.

"Kaka—you—" she swallows hard, shivering and not understanding why. But it doesn't matter, if it makes the act more convincing. "This—Ino—"

And then she throws herself in a sudden flurry into his arms, into the insufficient warmth of his cold. It scares her more than anything has before; she is appalled but cannot show it. This was not part of the plan, not part of the act. Then _why_? She hates his traitorous touch, the shards of his broken-glass promises. He'd promised so much to her and given her nothing; and here she leeches and sucks the meaningless-ness out of his words, thrives shamelessly upon it.

_Coming back to the nest at nightfall._

She begins to cry. It is a silent weeping she has perfected, just like the Cheshire smile she treasures for its deadly charm. The feeling of tears tickling the bridge of her nose is delectable because it _hurts _so much.

The tears she cries are for his fairytales.

-

"Sakura," Tsunade beckons. "I've been watching you for the past few weeks."

Sakura grows cold and thinks of empty glass-crystal bottles and finger-printed doorknobs. A small smile forces itself onto her lips.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama?"

The golden-haired woman stares. The pink-haired woman swallows without showing it and still smiles.

"Sakura," says Tsunade.

She forces herself not to look away from the intensity, from the window-mirror, double-sided. She can scarcely separate the reflection from the illusion.

The gold eyes detect lies, but the green eyes have learned this from poisoned patience. The green eyes know and have grown smarter, have changed their ways. Tsunade is frightening to those who do not know her. But to those who take the time to learn her secrets, she is nothing but a scary mask with cracks all on the inside, spidering out.

"You have changed."

Sakura looks calmly out to a blank sea, quivering just beneath the surface.

"Have I?"

One more swallow, she permits herself.

"I think you already know what I'm talking about," says Tsunade, measured.

Sakura isn't sure whether to nod or shake her head. Instead, she does nothing but blink.

"I think you're ready."

Sakura snaps to attention, uses her last swallow, and says nothing.

"Sakura, you've been learning for two years now. What I've been teaching you is basic. All healers know the techniques you've learned; anyone could have taught you what you know." Tsunade stands from her chair and walks to the window, surveys the nameless faces on the streets, the lives she must keep safe until she betrays herself one cloudless night.

"I think it's time we made you my apprentice," Tsunade says.

The far-off call of a fish vendor rings in her ears. _200 yen a stick. Fried fish._

"Pardon?"

"It's time I started _teaching _you, Sakura."

Dusk quickly falls; the sky is burnt orange and red through rice paper curtains.

Tsunade turns and her imposing figure blocks the furious light. The shadows reap harvest all around and Sakura feels their scythes curving against her cheek. She bites her lip.

"I expect you to be prepared. I'll warn you ahead of time; it's not going to be easy. We will begin tomorrow, four a.m. sharp."

Tsunade circles around back to her desk, the clicking of her heels sharp and pointed.

She sits back down and spreads her palms gently on the wooden surface. A large inhale, as if this is a final decision and there is no turning back now.She looks to Sakura, and something inside there is pleading, begging. _Please._

"Don't disappoint me, Sakura."

-

Wow, I feel like I've been away forever. ;; It's hard for me to start writing again (especially fanfiction, whcih used to be the only think I _could_ write). I look back at my old writing from just a few months ago, and I think, "Ick." Yeah. I still have a long ways to go on the road of the literary. :3 Until then, bear with me.


	6. Lozenge

He kisses her and this time she finds that the taste doesn't bother her so much. She doesn't know if she should hate herself for it (or should shecongratulate herself?). There's so much irony in the thought that the taste is ruined for the briefest moment, blurred with copper bitterness.

She isn't there when he kisses her, and he knows it. What angers her so deeply, what _keeps her awake at nights_ is that he doesn't care, and he isn't afraid to show it.

The clock behind his back ticks in years. She watches it, her eyes glazed with the monotonous motion; the black hands reflected in her pupils. His tongue moves like cold sludge in her mouth, and she moves accordingly. She feels his snake tongue in her throat and wants to choke on it; wishes she could vomit it out into his face. Her hands are wrapped around his neck, but they are cold hands and they do not move, only tremble occasionally.

She wonders how much longer he's going to kiss her. (But then again, she shouldn't call it a kiss, should she?) Her shift at the hospital is in thirteen and a half minutes, and if she's late again—

She wiggles weakly against his body.

He pushes his tongue in deeper and she screws her eyes shut in the sick, forced pleasure of it all. And suddenly, the tongue is gone and he has turned away. The sliminess clogging her throat is gone now, but for some reason her mouth feels shocked and incomplete without the nausea in it. She opens her eyes to his gray back and his numbed hands.

_What do they feel,_ she wonders. _Why am I unfulfilled?_

He rustles a bit, methodically donning his shirt, never once looking at her. She watches him, a silent doll propped up against the wall. She folds her hands in her lap and pretends to be a lady, just to see what it feels like.

He stands up and walks to the door. He opens it and walks out.

_Bye,_ she mouths after him. _Don't come home too late, darling._

-

Mr. Speckers greets her, cheerily, she imagines. He is not one to dwell on things of the past, she convinces herself. She is changed, he is changed, and they are new persons. What enmity that lay between them before has dissolved like a throat lozenge, beautifully. She takes a moment to look at him, almost in awe. Mr. Speckers is an awesome creature, she tells herself.

She busies herself with useless things. Dusting the window sills where there is no dust. Sweeping the clean linoleum floor. Opening and closing the cabinets noisily and shifting capsules from one side to the other. She imagines that Mr. Speckers is watching her, with a smile on his handsome face.

She decides that Mr. Speckers was a handsome man at one time.

A whistle finds its way to her lips and she tests it, hesitantly. It floats on the air well, chilling her lips pleasantly. She whistles a familiar tune, one she can't quite remember the name of. She can't remember where she's heard it, but the notes are automatic…

Mr. Speckers applauds for her, anyways. She bows graciously to his deafening applause.

She begins to blow him a kiss, but when her fingers touch her cold, salty lips she finds herself shocked back to reality. The touch against dead nerves makes her stomach churn dizzily. She touches her lips again and again and again, tries to familiarize herself with the sensation; is amazed that they are her own.

_Wonderful, _she thinks. _Fantastic._

The change is a thrill. She wants to share the thrill.

So she sits down in the chair beside Mr. Speckers's bed.

"Mr. Speckers," she says, "I will tell you, because I know you will listen."

She settles herself and begins her tale.

-

Strange, I must agree.


	7. Halite

* * *

Tuesday night and Naruto hugs her at her doorstep. She shrivels inside of herself when he does; his arms are too warm and too safe (she is too in love with danger now), and this makes her ridiculously insecure.

Tonight is the first celebration of winter—the festival of first snow—and the glowing lanterns strung up all around remind her of bladders bursting with red wine wishes.

She is wearing a silk kimono tonight, red as the bladders hung from lengths of sky-string. She feels strange in the garment; the sensation of smooth cold is deliciously awkward on her skin. Her hair is coiled into a loose up-do, so the strands of hair spill out and along her pale face, and the chill nips the nape of her neck. The light from the lanterns settles on her cheekbones, leeching away her luminance.

Naruto's eyes are unbearably bright.

She avoids his gaze the entire walk through town, until they meet up with a large group of chuuin and jounin at the ramen stand.

"Oi, there you guys are," calls Kiba, roughly. "You had us waiting." Naruto grins widely.

"Couldn't get the party started without me, huh?"

Sakura watches the exchange of greetings and is mildly sickened by it. She lets herself sink slowly to the back of the group, falling through layers and layers of wafer people. She slides onto one of the stools and listens absently to the banter and the moon-iced laughter.

Her eyes drift close and then a touch so electrifying, so cold, snaps her awake.

"Sakura," he says, and her stomach drops five levels, into a black pit she cannot escape.

She turns to face him (first erasing the dreadful floundering), and the lantern glow is reflected off his banal expression. She cannot say his name, she mustn't—

"What are you doing here?" she asks bluntly and without poise (but it's better than saying his name, she tells herself).

He smiles as if he understands her, and the cracks of his smile embarrass her.

"Am I not supposed to be here?" he asks gently, inoffensively, and at the same time putting her to fault.

She clenches the pool of bloody silk shimmering in her lap.

"I—no, it's not that," she says quickly, knuckles cold as a comet's punch. She looks away from his steady gray gaze. "You just—surprised me."

"Ah." He nods and keeps that smile. His smile is a train in the night that hurtles through inky dark, ignoring the crash before it—

They sit in a silence swirled with foreign sounds. The words come burbling in from strangers' throats to mingle in dead ear canals. These two are strangers who have met once before, but one has turned the cheek.

"Ne, Sakura-chan! Come be my partner!" Naruto crashes into the scene with his raucous grace, his orange, eagle-spread palms. His face is so bright and bobbing (he is seal-eyed) that she nearly cringes, until she remembers that Kakashi is sitting beside her; so she curbs the expression into an uneasy smile.

"But—"she begins.

"Come on! It'll be fun!" Naruto jumps up and down with all the energy of the stars packed and bursting from his tan frame. He grabs her by the hands, catching her by surprise. She tenses, clenching her hands within his grasp, cold and hard.

Kakashi speaks, a smooth and inundating taunt. "Go ahead, Sakura. Don't let me ruin your fun."

The hiss collects beneath her breath, under the feeling of pinpointing eyes.

Reluctantly, she stands, sliding off the cool wooden stool. Naruto leads her off to a game in the middle of the group, where the cries and hoots paw at her ears. She carries out the motions with a sick locomotive chugging inside of her, with the constant awareness of his muted gaze on her that is so beautiful, so appalling.

The game is a dancing game, and Naruto's pace is too high and too far to match her sedate step. They dance more than a little awkwardly together, but Naruto in all his bursting smiles compensates. She looks along the skyline and the stars frost her eyes blue-green, and the voices of the people all around are far away. Their laughs do not include her. _(only his gaze is—)_

She forces herself, gritting, against the magnet of his eyes.

Halfway through the night she remembers that Ino is dead.

-

She creates beautiful blue fire, cupped in the palm of her miraculous hand. Tsunade's gaze at this moment is piercing and frightening, the omnipotent judge. (Even a cracking mask is frightening if painted in the right way.)

Sakura feels the sharpness of Tsunade's gaze puncturing the junction of her shoulder; her eagle eyes are hard and unforgiving. Sakura's hands need to know perfection. She controls her pants, willing the sweat crystallizing on her bare forehead to form perfect squares.

The fire pulses and she feels her heartbeat in it; the faint but steady throb of an embryo.

_(my creation,_ she thinks, tinged with warmth from the thought)

She is lost in the blaze.

Tsunade speaks, cutting through cobweb fantasies. "The flame is steady," she says, "but there is something lacking."

Sakura snaps out of her stupor and the flame abruptly evaporates. She examines her burnt fingertips, and then frowns slightly, reaching to brush a streak of sweat and a pink bang aside.

She looks to Tsunade, who is frowning. Tsunade gives her a searching look, as if by looking hard enough she will discover something buried beneath the pores.

"You need more—flame. More heat."

Sakura makes a troubled expression of incomprehension.

"You need to make flame as if you were making yourself," she says, before clicking away to her desk. The meaning of the words just barely escapes her, skimming easily over her head.

"That's enough for today, Sakura," Tsunade says, once safely behind the paper piles on the desk, her fortress. "You may go home now and rest."

Sakura bites her lip, turning it marble white.

She thinks of the blue fire dancing and cannot find fault in the gypsy.

"But—"she starts.

"Go home, Sakura. I have nothing else to say to you today."

She bites her lips so hard she imagines the taste of blood. Hands balled and fingertips crackling, Sakura stands, lifting up the skirt of her dress from the ground.

"Thank you, Tsunade-sama," she says, bowing her head slightly.

She turns and walks out the door, the blue gypsy fire misting her eyes.

-

Getting that feeling again.


	8. Try Not to Drown

* * *

The funeral is quick, efficient, and grey. It isn't the grand affair Ino had always boasted of, and that bit of information allows her to savor a smirk. There are plenty of flowers, to be sure, but they are mostly cheap. Daisies and carnations, baby's breath, and a few dozen roses—not the luxurious blooms Ino had always favored in life. When choosing her flower, Sakura carefully ignores the cosmos and convinces herself that it's the messy pollen that repels her, and nothing else. There is nothing to remember. 

She doesn't look at the large gray coffin when she comes to deposit the flower on the table littered with photos and other flowers. Instead, she bows her head to let the bangs cover her eyes and prays that she looks gracefully sorry. Never mind the feeling of fear that is seeping steadily up her ribs, or the sneaking suspicion that Ino might not be dead. Sakura is afraid that Ino might come back to life, just like she is afraid that Mr. Speckers will spring on her one of these days.

Sakura swallows the sudden pounding in her head and stumbles quickly away from the coffin, filing back into line among the rest. No one notices the drowning girl.

She frowns when she finds that Chouji and Shikamaru are standing beside her. (sincerity scars—) Chouji looks genuinely sorry, but Shikamaru has on a dark, angry expression that frightens her, marginally. She's never known Shikamaru to care for anything, and this curdled expression is unsettling. It flatters him too much.

At this point, Tsunade comes to the front of the large assembly and stands with her pigtails tossing in the wind. Sakura controls the twitch of her still-burnt fingers and recalls the blue gypsy, fondly. She masks her glare with heavy lids and feels delightfully clever.

Tsunade says a few words, as is obligatory of the Hokage at the death of any shinobi. Sakura doesn't listen, only notes that the words sound over-prepared and starched with forced emotion. (she really is a mask, Sakura muses.)

A point of cold kisses the bridge of her nose.

She looks up and the sky is a roll of grey felt, the color of bruised grapes and misty walks alone.

It's raining.

She's never liked the rain much before, but today—today is different. Today, the rain is necessary, though she doesn't understand why.

The air is charged with particles of enigma and some other gleeful suspicion. She exhales loudly, more loudly than she had intended. It fills the air. She cringes at this production and glances discreetly around at the crowd of bowed heads. Chouji does not seem to notice, but Shikamaru has his morose gaze fixed on her. She feigns ignorance, but his dark look makes the hairs on her neck raise imperceptibly. Her hands clench by her sides, white knuckles hidden by black folds.

She shivers and sets her jaw as Tsunade intones meaningless words of grief.

Only a few minutes pass, but those minutes are drawn out by the dark stare trained on her, and she wants to get away, desperately, from this gray and suffocating affair. _No escape_, whispers the little voice in the backdrop that rings so loudly. She swallows and grits her teeth, tries to think of something pleasant but finds there _are_ no pleasant things to think of. Not when the coffin is wide open and about to swallow her whole, not when Tsunade is speaking that way, so phonily (she can't stand it! break the mask!), not when Shikamaru is staring through dark corners to find her and not when—

Her best friend is dead.

And then too quickly it's over, and they all go home.

-

She sloshes through the rain and the water grips at her feet, pulls at the lengths of her black clothes and turns them into tarry dead weights. She struggles and gasps through the wetness and is glad that the road she takes home is abandoned and no one goes this way, anymore. No one is there to witness her mistakes or her brokenness; no one to step in and ruin this perfection she can claim as her own. She gasps and kicks the deep puddles and splashes the anger everywhere, all over. The water drips and dribbles in between her sandaled toes, freezes the blood in her veins. She can barely breathe. Her hair sticks to her face and wriggles-flings everywhere; pink, wet serpents that hit her face each time with a delightful smack. The heat in her eyes is boiling rain, she tells herself.

The water is deep. She imagines it up to her knees, rising steadily. The folds of her clothes drip and run with rivers of water and drag her down to their depths. The weight is too much and she collapses to her knees, the water still rising, higher. It is up to her neck now, will be over her head in a moment…!

She takes in a deep gulp of air, and the illusion is abruptly shattered. She stands in the pelting silence for a while and the magnitude of her lie hits her. She swallows, her throat inconveniently dry.

_No escape_, whispers the tiny voice.

* * *

Finally got off my butt and finished this (lame) chapter. Still kind of stuck in a rut. 


End file.
